Last week, for our summer vacation we took the kids to the Outer Banks for a week. Seven days in one beach house with five adults and four kids four and under is a little bit of insanity, but we survived and had a good time while we were at it.
Technically, Hudson has been to the beach before. In fact, this was our last actual vacation: a trip to the Outer Banks with Bart’s family in Thanksgiving of 2015. Hudson was only three months old, so he didn’t have much opinion on the matter. This time, he just turned two the week before and was big enough to run around and enjoy the beach. He liked digging in the sand with his two older cousins, and he really loved standing in the surf and waiting for the waves to come in. I wondered if he would be timid or afraid, but he had a fabulous time.
Hazel, on the other hand, is at kind of a tough age for beach play. She is mobile and wants to crawl and sit and use her hands, but she can’t sit in one spot more than five seconds before diving to the sand and putting it in her mouth. There was just no avoiding it, so she ended up having to be held or corralled in a beach chair whenever she was outside. However, you could tell she really loved the ambiance of the waves and the sun and wind.
We unfortunately encountered a tropical storm right after we arrived, so we were stuck in the house about 24 hours while that passed. Then we had thunderstorms later in the week, too. However, we had some nice days and squeezed in beach time between raindrops where we could. We visited the new H2OBX water park one day. The kids (including Hazel!) really enjoyed the splash park as well as the lazy river. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a scorching hot day, so we all got a little cool by the afternoon, but it was a fun excursion.
On the last day, we took family photos on the beach, something we did in 2015 that turned out to be one of the best parts of the trip. The kids were a little fussy that morning, and my hair exploded in the 200% humidity, but we still had fun snapping some shots by the waves.
Traveling with two littles is exhausting, but we were glad for the opportunity to spend a week with Bart’s side of the family and give the kids a new experience. Coming home Labor Day weekend, it really felt like the close of summer and the beginning of fall, a fresh start for the last stretch of the year. I’m ready to plant some mums, put out my fall wreath, and write my bucket list for Autumn and the holiday season.
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